


come into the water

by briarsrowan



Series: washing machine heart [1]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: ADHD, F/M, Hallucinations, Medication, Mental Illness, PTSD, Paranoia, Psychosis, Referenced Child Abuse, Substance Abuse, Trauma, adderall, mitski lyrics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:15:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27125743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/briarsrowan/pseuds/briarsrowan
Summary: I didn't know I had a dreamI didn't know until I saw youSo would you tell me if you want me?—Percy and trauma.
Relationships: Annabeth Chase/Percy Jackson
Series: washing machine heart [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1979938
Comments: 2
Kudos: 78





	come into the water

**Author's Note:**

> cw: referenced child abuse, hallucinations, trauma, minor medication abuse

Percy is 11 the first time he’s prescribed adderall, before then his mom had resisted medicating him, for some reasons Percy will only understand later (gods and monsters and the need for reflexes) and for some that she tells him.

  
‘You’re too young’ She says as they walk back to their apartment, storm clouds gathering. He looks back at her silently and looks back up at their apartment. The lights are on. Gabe is inside. He is too young for this too. He doesn’t say so, but Sally smiles sadly at him anyway.

  
Percy is still young when he first starts taking adderall, a lower dose of extended release that quickly climbs in dosage. Sally caves when it becomes clear that something has to be done to help Percy with school, for his sake. It helps a little, but he still struggles. Some of his teachers grow less patient with him as a result, believing that he’s misbehaving on purpose. He isn’t, he wants to be good, but bad luck seems to follow him. He tries to tell his teachers, so he won’t listen. He hears them say that his meds clearly aren’t working once and the next day he takes two pills instead of one, thinking that more will make him better.

  
It makes things worse and that same day his principal meets with his mom and kicks him out of yet another school. They ask him what he was thinking and he tells them that Franky Johnston was saying mean things to Ella Little and she was crying. It wasn’t fair and so Percy had hit Franky. Sally tries to argue with the principal, tries to get off with a warning, but this isn’t the first time they’ve had this talk. Percy doesn’t tell them about the extra pill, doesn’t tell them that he stays up for the next three days and doesn’t feel tired once. (He especially doesn’t tell them about the crash on the third day).

  
Percy doesn’t misuse his adderall for a while after that. He takes it diligently, though it never seems to be helping the way his doctors want it to. He knows his mom is hopeful too, so he tells them what they want to hear and does his best to make it happen.

  
Percy is twelve the first time he goes off his adderall after its first prescribed. He’s tired more, but that could also be the quest. He’s focus wanes and waxes, sharpening in an instant and disappearing as soon as the moment has relaxed. The intense pressure of the quest and traveling alone and missing his mom keeps him going. He doesn’t stop, he goes and goes and if sometimes, at night, he sits and drifts outside his body, feels empty and tired and numb, then nobody can blame him.

  
Percy forgets about the adderall until he’s back at school that fall, back home with his mom. For the first time he is forced to wonder how it will affect his reflexes, if his ADHD really is a demigod side-effect. As it turns out, the reflexes are not the main concern. The first week Percy is taking adderall again it feels almost normal. He doesn’t notice much, which is how he remembers it being before. He’s in class the first time it happens. The voice is distant, like it's out in the hall, but it's unmistakable. ‘Percy!’ Not-Gabe screams (because it can’t be Gabe, Gabe is dead and gone and made of stone). Percy freezes, his breathing gets shallow, and without making excuses he runs into the hall and draws Riptide. No one is there, but his paranoia only grows. He spends the rest of the school day in the bathroom, hyperventilating and dry heaving into the toilet.

  
For three days he hears Gabe, calling him, from around the corner. He writes to Annabeth about it, thinking maybe it's a demigod thing, but he never sends it. On the third day, after school, Percy catches the subway downtown to the Lower East Side gallery where Gabe is currently housed. He goes round the block three times before he finally goes in.

  
Gabe is still there, playing poker and very much still stone, and Percy knows for sure then that this is all in his head. He lets out a breath and for a while, it stops. His body gets used to the adderall again and if sometimes he questions if things are real, that’s just part of being a demigod, not anything else.

  
The next time Percy goes off adderall is after he blasts himself out of Mt. St. Helens and lands on Ogygia. It is again unintended. Time is different on Ogygia and Percy does not struggle with it the way he normally does. Things feel almost, right, and it makes it all the harder to resist. Still, Percy has to go, his friends are in danger and eventually, Calypso lets him.

  
When Percy gets back, meds are the farthest thing from his mind. He doesn’t get back on adderall until winter, when Sally asks suddenly if he needs a refill, and Percy remembers that he’s supposed to be taking medication. It feels small and unnecessary and he almost says no, but the normalcy of it, in the face of the prophecy, is suddenly comforting and so he says yes and tells his mom that he’s been out for a while, but keeps forgetting to ask. Sally scolds him jokingly, but promises to pick it up when she goes out next.

  
When he starts taking it again he hears more than just Gabe, he also hears Kronos, mocking him from the shadows, threatening his friends, hears his father, hears Annabeth and Chiron and the oracle. He sees shadows in the corners of his eyes and no matter how he confronts it, they don’t go away.

  
So he ignores them. They’re not so bad, manageable even if he adheres to a short set of reality checking questions.

  
1\. Is this possible?  
2\. Does this make sense?  
3\. Would Annabeth believe this?

  
Percy manages the hallucinations, takes his adderall and bottles up the end of the world stress all through the Battle of Manhattan. He makes it to three weeks later, when he and Annabeth are packing up to leave camp, when he loses his grip.

  
He wakes in the night, convinced that he’s failed, that Kronos has won and everything has ended. Annabeth sleeps next to him, almost peaceful. As the nightmare fades and Percy’s eyes focus in the dark of the Poseidon cabin, his blood freezes. Standing before him, fully formed, is Gabe, fucking Gabe, because it always seems to come back to him. Percy’s breath is shaky.

  
“Is this possible?” He asks out loud, but he can’t look away from Gabe, who has yet to speak. “Does this m-make sense?”

  
Gabe speaks, “Where’s my money kid?”  
Before he can think Percy is moving, He’s drawn Riptide and he is hacking at the air. Gabe always seems to be just out of reach.  
Annabeth wakes. She lunges after him, confused and dazed.

  
“No, no, no, no, no,” Percy cries, “you’re dead.”

  
“Percy, Percy,” Annabeth says. She wraps her arms around him from behind and clings as Percy flails.

  
Percy stumbles, dropping Riptide, and the two of them crash towards the ground. Percy melts, sobbing into Annabeth and she holds him silently. In the morning, they will talk, but now, in the darkness right before the sun, it is enough to just be with each other, crying on the floor.


End file.
